Lottery funders have dug deep to underpin a cash-strapped council’s bid to test proposals for a new way to run its parks and allotment sites.

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), in partnership with the Big Lottery Fund, has already invested more than £12million to restore and upgrade Newcastle’s historic parks.

Last year the HLF voiced concern that past restoration awards were in danger of being wasted because of the decline of parks through cuts in staff and maintenance as councils faced big cuts in Government funding.

Now the HLF has awarded another £237,500 to help Newcastle City Council to develop a new management model for 33 of the city’s parks and 50 hectares of allotment land.

The proposal could see Newcastle’s parks and green spaces remain the property of the city council but with responsibility for funding, managing and maintaining them being transferred to a new charitable trust.

The council will also explore whether an endowment could be put in place to support the trust.

The scheme has been designed to help tackle the financial challenges facing the local authority, where park budgets have been dramatically reduced.

The council is launching a public consultation on the plans which starts on February 13 until April 21.

This new HLF funding is aimed at helping to protect its previous parks investment and further test and develop proposals which emerged from an earlier HLF-funded ‘Rethinking Parks’ project In its recent report, State of UK Public Parks 2016, HLF outlined the financial challenges facing parks in light of local authority budget reductions and called on local and national government, communities and businesses to explore innovative ways to fund and maintain public parks.

This news comes as the Communities and Local Government Select Committee Inquiry into the future of parks published its report.

Leazes Park, Newcastle

​Coun Kim McGuinness, cabinet member for culture and communities at Newcastle City Council, said “The council is delighted that HLF has made this funding award, which will help us to move forward with our plan to transform the way our parks are run.

“ It’s also good timing that this announcement is made as we are about embark on our wide ranging consultation with residents and park users in Newcastle.

“This parks engagement programme is a pathfinding project that will enable the council to work closely with residents, community groups and businesses to help shape the future of Newcastle’s parks.

“The State of UK Public Parks report rightly highlights the great difficulties we face in sustaining and prioritising our parks and green spaces in this climate of local authority budget cuts.

“We’re committed in Newcastle to moving with the times and modernising. This is a pioneering opportunity for the city as we seek to create a charitable trust model to run and protect our parks and ensure they remain in public ownership at a time when austerity has made our current operating model unsustainable.”

The Palace of the Arts (which was part of the 1929 North East Coast Exhibition) at Newcastle Exhibition Park, today

HLF will require the council to share its findings so that other local authorities can benefit.

Ros Kerslake, chief executive of HLF, said: “Having invested more than £850 million of National Lottery players’ money in ensuring over 850 of the UK’s historic parks are in good shape, we welcome the recommendations of this report which puts their future front and centre of strategic local priorities.

“Our State of UK Public Parks 2016 report revealed the immense financial pressures facing our public parks. But it also revealed just how important these spaces are to the health and well-being of local communities and they need to be protected.

This lottery investment is giving Newcastle City Council the tools to explore a creative approach to securing its parks for everyone.”

Walker Park

Harry Bowell, National Trust director for the North said: “This is a really exciting opportunity for Newcastle to safeguard its parks and greenspaces, and the many benefits they provide, forever, and we are delighted to be supporting the city and its communities on this trailblazing project.

“We are lending our experience and skills to help ensure the proposals for the new independent charity are financially sustainable and also protect the wider benefits parks currently deliver to local communities.”

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“This is an important moment for local people and business to get involved in shaping the future of the city’s parks. We would encourage people to feed into the council consultation.”

The HLF money will be used to construct a business case and legal structure for the trust to operate the council’s parks and allotments; and if implemented, put the governance in place and deliver training to the new trustees, staff and volunteers.